The Governance of Semantic Resources for the FIG Community

Knowledge Organization Systems (KOSs) or controlled vocabularies in terms of taxonomies, thesauri, and ontologies, among others, enable Semantic Web and Linked Data implementations by supporting the publishing of data in a relational, structured way. A number of KOSs are available for the FIG community, as outlined by Çağdaş et al. (2021). Among these, The Linked Land Governance Thesaurus (LandVoc) and Cadastre and Land Administration Thesaurus (CaLAThe) are two thesauri developed specifically for the service of the land related discipline. The former is related to land governance; while the latter is related to the administrative, legal, and geospatial aspects of cadastre and land administration. These thesauri have some commonalities in terms of subject areas, yet are different regarding scope and level of detail; therefore, they support each other. The LandVoc thesaurus is stored as a subschema of FAO’s AGROVOC Multilingual Thesaurus (AGROVOC). Investigation on whether CaLAThe should join the AGROVOC context as a subschema is ongoing. This effort may be adequate but would benefit from being supplemented with support for the explorative development and application of semantic resources, including ontologies, and the application of these in higher education. The role of the FIG International Office for Cadastre and Land Records (OICRF) in documenting knowledge on land administration may also include the storing of semantic resources. Such semantic resources include FIG- and land-related ontologies, thesauri, taxonomies, as well as code lists and their values specified by ISO Land Administration Domain Model (cf. Kara et al., 2022). We therefore suggest the establishment of a working group with the support of FIG representation, in charge of the integration, maintenance and application of CaLAThe and LandVoc as comprehensive, research-related semantic resources for FIG and the broader land sector. The proposed working group will include representatives of universities, mapping and cadastral agencies, and land and data practitioners working to improve interoperability of semantic resources. The governance of semantic resources related to cadastre, land administration and land governance will contribute to the improved understanding of linked land administration data. Publishing cadastral, land administration and governance data (cf. Stubkjær & Çağdaş, 2015) and LinkedSDG data contribute to better reporting on the land-related Sustainable Development Goals indicators. This underlines the role that land administration can play in support of sustainable development (cf. Bayer & Meggiolaro, 2024). The purpose of the paper is to (i) describe the importance of semantic web technology for the recording and the improved discoverability of land administration data and (ii) document the ongoing investigations regarding alignment of CaLAThe and LandVoc for the benefit of FIG and the land administration community as a whole.